


After

by PunkHazard



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second time in his post-Train life that Curtis holds a baby in his arms, he gets to smile; he gets to stick his tongue out and cross his eyes; he gets to extend his finger and laugh when the kid grabs for it. He gets to say, “Hey Timmy,” and then he gets to hand him back to his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Tanya & Curtis headcanons

The second time in his post-Train life that Curtis holds a baby in his arms, he gets to smile; he gets to stick his tongue out and cross his eyes; he gets to extend his finger and laugh when the kid grabs for it. He gets to say, “Hey Timmy,” and then he gets to hand him back to his mother.

One of the things he remembers most clearly in the aftermath of the first Sacrifice wasn’t just the way anyone who’d emerged with their limbs intact would stay up for days on end caring for those who’d given up their arms, or their legs; it was how they looked at him. Curtis would move through the car and people would shrink away— it was disruptive so he’d elected to sit in an empty corner instead, hating himself for the thought that Gilliam’s arm was a little tougher than little Edgar’s would’ve been.

The day before the protein blocks finally arrived, when they had only just run out of food again, baby Edgar hasn’t yet learned to talk and he’s not old enough to remember what had happened but he is cognizant enough to demonstrate very clearly that he’s still hungry—

(which is, in Curtis’s opinion, a very convenient age for the kid to be)

— Tanya’s the one Curtis asks to bring him a knife. She’s the only one who’s never been afraid of him. She ties the tourniquet for him, hands the sharpened blade over.

When he positions the edge of the knife over his forearm, Tanya snorts. When he first saws all around, the knife digging deep enough on one side to scrape bone (If you’re going to do it, Gilliam had said, do it quickly at the joint, but Curtis hadn’t learned to listen to the man yet), the pain stops him from going further.

"If you can’t do it right," Tanya had said contemptuously, "you’re just gonna be even more damn useless than you already are."

He couldn’t do it, but Tanya had dressed the wound as well as she could (she always says it was a miracle he didn’t get infected but Curtis says instead that it’s a miracle she was there to do it for him, trained field nurse that she is) and when the protein blocks arrived, Curtis was able to use both hands to carry a load all the way to the back of the train where Gilliam and the others were waiting.

Now it’s Tanya in the dim light of the train, cradling Timmy to her and prodding at his cheek, expression delighted when he reaches for her hand. “Curtis,” she says, almost coos against the cloth her son’s been swaddled in, “you’ll take care of him? Put those arms to good use?”

"Yeah," Curtis manages to choke out, nodding. "That’s what they’re for, Tanya."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: everyone lives but nothing is ever the same again.

Yona drops Timmy’s hand to make a run for the big! fluffy! animal! but three steps in, she’s nearly clotheslined by a furred arm, _appa_ tossing her backwards and away from the— ‘Polar bear,’ he explains gruffly in Korean, the translator at his hip doing the work for the rest of their group, ‘it’ll eat you if you get close.’

"It’s cute," Yona answers.

Timmy and Andy make agreement noises, Tanya and Grey scooping the kids up, out of the snow. The two of them had, despite their injuries, rushed to the head of train with them, closing the door to the head before _appa_ ’s Kronole bomb exploded. Curtis has been on his knees for the past ten minutes, the stump of his arm tied off with a strip of cloth, his expression the picture of dazed bliss.

'The slaughterhouse is eight cars back,' _appa_ says, ‘the fish tank is a bust. We can use the train for shelter, the insulation should be fine until we figure out how to go from here.’

Tanya’s the one who asks: “So what do we do now?”

Yona and Grey both look from her to Curtis to the train, then back at Namgoong. Yona’s head is spinning, the smell of burnt Kronole still lingering in the air, each wave of the scent swept away by a freezing gust before it moves over them again from the smoking wreckage.

 _Appa_ 's shoulders rise in a loose shrug, a crooked grin tugging up the corners of his lips, the translator's mechanical voice echoing his words.

'Whatever you want.'


End file.
